The history of mankind is the history of wars. The Swiss Jean-Jacques Babel calculated that in the entire history from 3500 BC to the present day, mankind has lived peacefully only 292 years.

But wars have happened differently. Often the number of deaths in the war is difficult to estimate, but if we take the minimum figures of casualty estimates, the picture is as follows.

10. Napoleonic Wars (1799-1815)

The wars that Napoleon Bonaparte waged with various European states in the period from 1799 to 1815 are usually called the Napoleonic Wars. The gifted commander began to redivide the political map of Europe even earlier than he made the coup of the 18th Brumaire and became the First Consul. The Hanoverian Campaign, the War of the Third Coalition or the Russo-Austro-French War of 1805, the War of the Fourth Coalition, or the Russo-Prussian-French War of 1806-1807, which ended with the famous Treaty of Tilsit, the War of the Fifth Coalition, or the Austro-French War of 1809, the Patriotic War of 1812 and the War of the Sixth Coalition of European Powers against Napoleon, and finally the March of the Hundred Days, which ended with the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, claimed lives at least 3.5 million people. Many historians double this figure.

9. Civil War in Russia (1917-1923)

In the civil war that followed the 1917 revolution in Russia, more people died than in all the Napoleonic Wars: at least 5.5 million people, and according to more daring estimates, all 9 million. And although these losses amounted to less than half a percent of the world's population, for our country the war between the reds and the whites had the most serious consequences. No wonder Anton Ivanovich Denikin canceled all awards in his army – what awards in a fratricidal war? And, by the way, they think in vain that the Civil War ended in 1920 with the Crimean evacuation and the fall of the White Crimea. In fact, the Bolsheviks managed to suppress the last pockets of resistance in Primorye only in June 1923, and the struggle with the Basmachi in Central Asia dragged on until the beginning of the forties.

8. Dungan Uprising (1862)

In 1862, the so-called Dungan Rebellion against the Qing Empire began in northwestern China. Chinese and non-Chinese Muslim national minorities – Dungans, Uyghurs, Salars – rebelled, according to the Great Soviet Encyclopedia, against the national oppression of the Sino-Manchu feudal lords and the Qing dynasty. English-speaking historians do not quite agree with this and see the origins of the uprising in racial and class antagonism and in the economy, but not in religious strife and rebellion against the ruling dynasty. Be that as it may, but beginning in May 1862 in Weinan County, Shaanxi Province, the uprising spread to the provinces of Gansu and Xinjiang. There was no single headquarters of the uprising, and in the war all with all suffered, according to various estimates, from 8 to 12 million people. As a result, the uprising was brutally suppressed, and the surviving rebels were sheltered by the Russian Empire. Their descendants still live in Kyrgyzstan, South Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan.

7. Uprising of Ai Lushan (8th century AD)

The era of the Tang Dynasty is traditionally considered in China the period of the highest power of the country, when China was far ahead of the modern countries of the world. And the civil war at that time was equal to the country - grandiose. In world historiography, it is called the uprising of Ai Lushan. Due to the location of Emperor Xuanzong and his beloved concubine Yang Guifei Turks (or Sogdians) in the Chinese service, Ai Lushan concentrated enormous power in the army in his hands - under his command were 3 of the 10 border provinces of the Tang Empire. In 755, Ai Lushan rebelled and the following year proclaimed himself emperor of the new Yan dynasty. And although already in 757 the sleeping leader of the uprising was stabbed to death by his trusted eunuch, it was possible to pacify the rebellion only by February 763. The number of victims is amazing: by the smallest count, 13 million people died. And if pessimists are to be believed and assume that China's population had shrunk by 36 million at that time, one would have to admit that Ai Lushan's rebellion had reduced the world's population by more than 15 percent. In this case, if we count by the number of victims, it was the largest armed conflict in the history of mankind until the Second World War.

6. First World War (1914-1918)

The hero of Francis Scott Fitzgerald's novel The Great Gatsby called it "the belated migration of the Teutonic tribes." It was called the war against war, the Great War, the European War. The name with which she remained in history was invented by the military columnist of the Times, Colonel Charles Repington: The First World War.

The starting shot of the world meat grinder was a shot in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914. From that day until the armistice of November 11, 1918, 15 million died by the most modest standard. If you come across the number 65 million - do not be alarmed: it also included all those who died from the Spanish flu - the most massive flu pandemic in the history of mankind. In addition to the mass of victims, the result of the First World War was the liquidation of as many as four empires: Russian, Ottoman, German and Austria-Hungary.

5. Wars of Tamerlane (14th century)

Remember Vasily Vereshchagin's painting "The Apotheosis of War"? So, initially it was called the "Triumph of Tamerlane", and all because the great Eastern commander and conqueror loved to build pyramids from human skulls. I must say that there was no shortage of material: for 45 years of conquest campaigns, the lame Timur - in Persian Timur-e-Liang, and in our opinion Tamerlane - laid, no less, more than 3.5 percent of the world's population of the second half of the XIV century. The minimum is 15 million, or even all 20. Wherever he went: Iran, Transcaucasia, India, the Golden Horde, the Ottoman Empire – the interests of the iron chrome extended widely. Why "iron"? And because the name Timur, or rather Temur is translated from Turkic languages as "iron". By the end of Tamerlane's reign, his empire stretched from Transcaucasia to Punjab. Emir Timur did not have time to conquer China, although he tried - death interrupted his campaign.

4. Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864)

In fourth place again is China, which is not surprising: the country is populated. Again, the times of the Qing Empire, that is, turbulent: the Opium Wars, the Dungan Rebellion, the Ihetuan movement, the Xinhai Revolution... And the bloodiest uprising of the Taipings, which claimed the lives of the most conservative estimates of 20 million people. The immodest increase this figure to 100 million, that is, up to 8% of the world's population. The uprising, which began in 1850, was essentially a peasant war – disenfranchised Chinese peasants rose up against the Manchu Qing Dynasty. The goals were the most benign: to overthrow the Manchus, to drive out foreign colonizers and to create a kingdom of freedom and equality – the Taiping heavenly kingdom, where the very word Taiping means "Great Tranquility". The rebellion was led by Hong Xiuquan, who decided that he was the younger brother of Jesus Christ. But in the Christian way, that is, mercifully, it did not work, although the Taiping kingdom in Southern China was created, and its population reached 30 million. "Hairy bandits", nicknamed so for rejecting the scythes imposed on the Chinese by the Manchus, occupied large cities, foreign states got involved in the war, uprisings began in other parts of the empire ... The uprising was suppressed only in 1864, and then only with the support of the British and French.

3. Capture of China by the Manchu dynasty

You'll laugh, but... Again the Qing Dynasty, this time the era of conquest of power in China, 1616-1662. 25 million victims, or almost five percent of the world's inhabitants, is the price of creating an empire founded in 1616 by the Manchu clan Aisin Gyoro in the territory of Manchuria, that is, the current northeastern China. Less than three decades later, all of China, part of Mongolia, and a large chunk of Central Asia came under her rule. The Chinese Ming Empire weakened and fell under the blows of the Great Pure State – Da Qing-guo. The blood-winning empire lasted a long time: the Qing Empire was destroyed by the Xinhai Revolution of 1911-1912, the six-year-old Emperor Pu Yi abdicated the throne. However, he will still be destined to lead the country - the puppet state of Manchukuo, created by the Japanese occupiers on the territory of Manchuria and existed until 1945.

2. Wars of the Mongol Empire (13-15 centuries)

Historians call the Mongol Empire a state formed in the XIII century as a result of the conquests of Genghis Khan and his successors. Its territory was the largest in world history and stretched from the Danube to the Sea of Japan and from Novgorod to Southeast Asia. The area of the empire is still amazing – approximately 24 million square kilometers. The number of people who fell during its formation, existence and disintegration will also not leave indifferent: according to the most optimistic estimates, it is not less than 30 million. Pessimists number all 60 million. True, we are talking about a significant historical period - from the first years of the XIII century, when Temuchin united the warring nomadic tribes into a single Mongol state and received the title of Genghis Khan and until standing on the Ugra in 1480, when the Muscovite state under Grand Duke Ivan III was completely freed from the Mongol-Tatar yoke. During this time, from 7.5 to more than 17 percent of the world's population died.

1. World War II (1939-1945)

The most terrible records are held by the Second World War. It is also the bloodiest – the total number of its victims is cautiously estimated at 40 million, and carelessly and in all 72. It is also the most destructive: the total damage to all warring countries exceeded the material losses from all previous wars, taken together and is considered equal to one and a half, or even two trillion dollars. This war and the most, so to speak, world war – 62 states out of 73 that existed at that time on the planet, or 80% of the world's population, participated in it in one form or another. The war was fought on earth, in the skies and at sea – the fighting was fought on three continents and in the waters of four oceans. It was the only conflict hitherto in which nuclear weapons were used.